Archive for December, 2017

Sergey Karjakin is the sole leader at the World Blitz Chess Championship in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Like last year, the defending champion scored 9/11 on the first day. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is in second place with 8.5 points while M…

Sergey Karjakin is the sole leader at the World Blitz Chess Championship in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Like last year, the defending champion scored 9/11 on the first day. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is in second place with 8.5 points while M…

King Salman World Rapid and Blitz Championships 2017 that takes place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia between 26th and 30th December 2017. The incumbent World Rapid and Blitz Champions — Sergey Karjakin (Russia) and Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine), along with Magnus Carlsen (Norway), the highest-rated chess player in the world and World Champion in classical chess, and over 180 top grandmasters have confirmed their participation, making the King Salman World Rapid and Blitz Championships one of the strongest open events of the year.

The four events offer a record total prize fund of US$2,000,000 with the Open events having individual prize funds of US$750,000 each and the women event having a prize fund of US$ 250,000 each. 30 prizes shall be offered in each event.

This is the blitz section of the event and you can follow the games live with video on Chessdom.com. Games start daily at 12:00 CET

Viswanathan Anand and Ju Wenjun for winning the FIDE World Rapid 2017 titles! Ju Wenjun was clear first in the women section with 11,5/15, while Anand battled with Fedoseev in the tiebreaks for the title.

TCEC Season 11 will start this January 3rd. It will involve 32 of the strongest computer chess software programs in the world. One more time the engines will be provided with a high quality hardware – a 44 cores server – and will compete in equal conditions to crown the strongest one in the Top Chess Engine Championship.

From this Season 11 TCEC is upgrading its format to a league system with promotions and relegations. This was announced in a press release on November 10, an article that generated over 250 000 views and is now fully updated with the new information. Besides an upgraded league system, TCEC will feature many more enhancements. Here is a list of some of them:

All divisions to run on a 44 cores computer

Engine authors rarely have access to high computing power on multiple cores. TCEC has decided to support engine developers by using the 44 cores server not only in the highest division, but around all divisions. The tournament organizers hope that, besides an interesting race, this will be a good test for the authors and will help further engine development.

A whole new division is created

The computer chess sector is booming – more and more engines are entering the software race with new ideas, new programing languages, and new algorithms. The participation requests for TCEC are at their highest ever and this provoked the creation of a whole new division – “Fourth Division”. It will again be composed of 8 engines. All of them will be invitational. Four of the participants will be promoted to Third Division.

The eight new engines that will compete in Fourth Division are in the participants list below.

Fritz enters the battle

One more new participant enters TCEC. This is one of the top 10 engines that was missing last season from the event – Fritz 16. It will start in Third Division, taking the place of Rybka and officially retiring it from the roster.

Stability as part of the game

Stability is very important in TCEC. The constant push for ELO increase sometimes renders bugs and issues. The organizers try to emphasize season after season how important stability is, thus starting Season 11 a new rule regarding this will be introduced. It is called the “3 strikes out” rule and states that an engine is allowed to crash maximum 3 times per division run, after which it is automatically relegated.

Critical play-preventing bugs and behaviors will be allowed a fix once per season.

Live GM commentary added

With the addition of the Twitch TV channel, TCEC’s coverage will expand rapidly in Season 11. The organizers are adding daily GM commentary. It will be done by the experienced coach and player GM Marian Petrov, current national champion of Bulgaria. He will be the resident commentator of TCEC and will be joined by many guests – computer chess experts and other Grandmasters – in the studio.

Note that practically all engines will use custom TCEC versions. For more information you can talk to the authors and computer chess experts at the ever active chat on the official website http://tcec.chessdom.com/live.php

During the opening ceremony of the World Blitz & Rapid Championships, FIDE Deputy President Mr. Makropoulos proposed to His Excellency Turki bin Abdel Muhsin Al-Asheikh, Chairman of the General Sports Authority of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, that the name of next year’s event in Riyadh can be “King Salman Peace & Friendship Rapid & Blitz World Chess Championships” and that in the spirit of the FIDE motto “Gens Una Sumus”, chess players from all nations will be welcomed and able to participate.

Read below the opinion of Peter Svidler in his interview after round 9:

Q (A. Karlovich): Peter, you have attended the opening ceremony and heard the message of FIDE for next year’s event in Riyadh. Do you support the idea?

A (P. Svidler): I think it`s a very important point. I was somewhat surprised and happy to see FIDE making this point. Generally speaking, the content level of official speeches during the ceremonies is not very high but in this case it is quite clear that FIDE wants to get this point across. I think it’s a good thing that they did. If the tournament is indeed held in Riyadh next year, I hope it will be fully representative because the current situation is clearly not great.

The King Salman World Rapid Championship continued today at the iconic Apex Convention Centre in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Five more rounds were played in both Open and Women’s sections.

The overnight leader in the Women’s section, Ju Wenjun of China, continued the campaign with four straight draws, but then when it mattered the most she closed the day with a win against IM Pham Le Thao Nguyen, once again singling out on the top of the standings with 8,0/10 points.

In the Open section Vladimir Fedoseev from Russia started with a win against the overnight co-leader Baadur Jobava and next he defeated Yuriy Kuzubov. There followed three draws in a row, but this was sufficient to retain a clear first place with 8,0/10 points.

On the shared second place with 7,5 points are Peter Svidler from Russia, Wang Hao from China and Viswanathan Anand of India, who has notably beaten the World classical champion Magnus Carlsen.

Of memorable games, the 15-years old Russian star Andrey Esipenko crushed the reigning World blitz chess champion and World championship challenger in classical chess Sergey Karjakin with a beautiful queen sacrifice.

Vladimir Fedoseev won against Baadur Jobava

The King Salman World Rapid Championship has five more rounds to be played and will end tomorrow.

Players from 55 countries, among them 10 men out of the World Top-15 as well as 11 out the World Top-15 women, are competing in this prestigious event.

Irene Sukandar missed the connecting flight, but still managed to arrive on time to participate in the championship

Jorden Van Foreest vs Pentala Harikrishna

Yuriy Kuzubov defeated the higher rated Alexander Grischuk

FIDE Vice President Martha Fierro in action

International Arbiter Effie Andrikopoulou

Grandmaster Laurent Fressinet

Peter Svidler and Magnus Carlsen about to start the game

FIDE CEO Geoffrey Borg with the distinguished guests

Viktor Laznicka showing the moves to local chess fan

Young chess fans posing for photos

Players resting in between the games

Traditional setting combined with modern technology

Day 1

The King Salman World Rapid Championship started today at the iconic Apex Convention Centre in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Players from 55 countries, among them 10 men out of the World Top-15 as well as 11 out the World Top-15 women, are competing in this prestigious event.

The honorary first move in the round 1 game Carlsen-Bu was made by Mr Kosay A.Alfawaz, Advisor to H.E. The Chairman of General Sports Authority of Saudi Arabia.

In the very same game Bu Xiangzhi stunned the world’s top rated player Magnus Carlsen by inflicting him yet another loss. Only few months ago Bu eliminated Carlsen from the FIDE World Cup in Tbilisi.

Also on the main stage, the second-seeded Maxime Vachier-Lagrave lost to Levan Pantsulaia. Likewise, in the women’s championship the top seed Kateryna Lagno started with a loss against Jolanta Zawadzka. The reigning World Blitz champion Sergey Karjakin also slipped in the first round, losing to Pavel Eljanov.

As if these introductory games set the tone for the rest of the rounds, we witnessed some exciting battles and many surprises throughout the day.

Zawadzka defeated Lagno in round 1

At the end of the first day of the competition, world championship challenger in classical chess Ju Wenjun is leading in the women’s section with the perfect 5/5 score.

In the Open section Baadur Jobava and Vladimir Fedoseev are on the top with 4,5/5 points each.

Vachier-Lagrave is down on 2,0 points, while third-seed Levon Aronian is on 2,5. Among the women, the top seed and former World Rpid champion Kateryna Lagno is on 50% score.

The King Salman World Rapid Championship has ten more rounds to be played and continues until 28th December.

After scording two wins and three draws on day two, Vladimir Fedoseev still leads the World Rapid Chess Championship in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Ju Wenjun also managed to keep her lead in the women’s segment.
Although the local organizati…

Tradewise 93th edition of the chess open in Hastings will be held from 28 December to 5th January.The venue will be Horntye Park Sports Complex.In the Masters events there will be more then 80 players.The top players are Deep Sengupta ,Alexander Fier and few other GMs and IMs.